Hed Delivers Snickers for Kids Instead of Facts for Grownups

Those cute kids in the hed shop last night wrote for the giggle instead of the facts -- again. This morning’s three-column headline on the Florida Page, “Naked man says cops broke in without warrant,” proves silly still rules at the playpen copy desk.

The headline kid takes a temporary condition – sleeping in the nude – to characterize a general state of being. In fact, the person in question was awakened in his home – where there’s no law against nakedness – in a case of mistaken identity. By the time the victim filed a complaint against Collier County’s finest, he had found his jeans.

The story says the victim believes he was targeted for a warrantless search based on an anonymous Crime Stopper’s tip because he wears dreads, caps and tats. “I like my dreads. I like my gold teeth. I like my tattoos on my arms,” he’s quoted as saying. Those are his permanent conditions. Less of a snicker and far more relevant and accurate: “Tattooed man says cops broke in without warrant.”

But a Sun copy desk kid (can’t bring myself to say “copy editor”) has an ongoing, adolescent fascination with all things nekkid.